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Thursday, December 27, 2012

A Happy Homemade Christmas - part 4 - All over Red Rover

And so, the Silly Season is over for another year. Though I didn’t achieve perfection (by a long shot) in my Quest for an entirely Handmade Christmas, I was happy with my efforts.

I
made the salads for our Xmas lunch. I supported local business by
getting the chutneys and pickles at the markets. I wrapped my presents
up in lovely rustic
twine and brown paper. I bought handmade for some of my gifts.

It
wasn’t easy though. Particularly the gift side – I’ve discovered not
everybody can be catered for by the handmade or locavore movement.

Books,
for example. You have to buy them, you can’t make them or get one from
your friendly local author. You CAN, however, support authors by buying
from independent
bookshops. Or DVDs. Again, something you can’t hand make or buy local.
But you CAN purchase them legitimately from a shop or online retailer,
thus ensuring everyone involved in their production receives their cut
of the profits. Piracy helps nobody.

So
what did I learn? Well, I found that handmade gifts for the men in my
family are extremely difficult. They just don’t want or need leather hip
flask covers,
stamped silver bottle opener keyrings or manscaping smelly things to
splash on their chiseled jaws. They’re not into fashion, and wear no
jewelry. Thus, sites like Etsy are a little of a lost cause for me when
shopping for males. The one exception is t-shirts
– there are some great, original artwork tees out there.

I
also learned that you just can’t do everything and work full-time. I
worked right up to Xmas Eve, and found that hand-making gift tags,
co-coordinating a decorative
colour theme for the dining room and trialing a tablescaping idea were
not within my abilities. However, I found some lovely handmade-looking
tags, bought crackers that matched the baubles on my tree and threw some
pinecones in a wire basket for a centerpiece.
And it worked out ok.

The
loveliest part of the day was having the chance to bring out and use
some of my vintage Pyrex. I used a divided casserole dish, an old amber
glass pie dish
and a large mixing bowl for the salads.

1 comment:

I tried to do the same this year. Buy handmade for gifts. Make decorations and support local businesses when it came to buying produce, etc. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be - but man did it take up a bit of time. (Not that I minded, just didn't have as much time as I would have liked.)

Your Christmas looks wonderful! I hope you had a lovely day and enjoyed your handiwork!

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Welcome to Surely Sarah

Hi, I'm Sarah! I'm 33 and searching for my passion.
Until then, I slog away in a cubicle working full-time and focus on enjoying my downtime with things like TV (my old friend), movies, twitter, (trying to) cook, reading and hanging out with my hubby. My head is turned by things like vintage homewares, stationery, chocolate and scrapbooking. I blog about whatever takes my fancy.